Dozens of journalists sifted through millions of leaked records and thousands of names to produce ICIJ’s investigation into offshore secrecy *

A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.

The secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lay bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways.

They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program.

The leaked files provide facts and figures — cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals — that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike.

The records detail the offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories.

The hoard of documents represents the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization. The total size of the files, measured in gigabytes, is more than 160 times larger than the leak of U.S. State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010.

To analyze the documents, ICIJ collaborated with reporters from The Guardian and the BBC in the U.K., Le Monde in France, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany, The Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and 31 other media partners around the world.

Eighty-six journalists from 46 countries used high-tech data crunching and shoe-leather reporting to sift through emails, account ledgers and other files covering nearly 30 years.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. This secret world has finally been revealed,” said Arthur Cockfield, a law professor and tax expert at Queen’s University in Canada, who reviewed some of the documents during an interview with the CBC. He said the documents remind him of the scene in the movie classic The Wizard of Oz in which “they pull back the curtain and you see the wizard operating this secret machine.”

Mobsters and Oligarchs
The vast flow of offshore money — legal and illegal, personal and corporate — can roil economies and pit nations against each other. Europe’s continuing financial crisis has been fueled by a Greek fiscal disaster exacerbated by offshore tax cheating and by a banking meltdown in the tiny tax haven of Cyprus, where local banks’ assets have been inflated by waves of cash from Russia.

Anti-corruption campaigners argue that offshore secrecy undermines law and order and forces average citizens to pay higher taxes to make up for revenues that vanish offshore. Studies have estimated that cross-border flows of global proceeds of financial crimes total between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion a year.

ICIJ’s 15-month investigation found that, alongside perfectly legal transactions, the secrecy and lax oversight offered by the offshore world allows fraud, tax dodging and political corruption to thrive.

What I found weird is that jounalists can have access to this kind of material, but no official government agencies.

It makes me think that the very wealthy, criminals, traffickers, tax evaders have some beautiful days ahead in other tax haven locations around the world

That is the funny part here - the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists probably got all the files from some official figure, with strong moral or who simply had enough of the tax evasion injustice.

I'm not sure about their beautiful days ahead, if the public gets sufficiently angered, politicians might actually do something about it. They will still remain increadibly wealthy, but maybe pay more appropriate tax figure next year.

That is the funny part here - the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists probably got all the files from some official figure, with strong moral or who simply had enough of the tax evasion injustice.

I'm not sure about their beautiful days ahead, if the public gets sufficiently angered, politicians might actually do something about it. They will still remain increadibly wealthy, but maybe pay more appropriate tax figure next year.

If you read the article, they shield their accounts with special service companies and holdings.

Nah, lobbyism is more powerful than the people and politicians know that they need their money for their compaigns

It's not going to happen.

__________________"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."

If you read the article, they shield their accounts with special service companies and holdings.

Nah, lobbyism is more powerful than the people and politicians know that they need their money for their compaigns

It's not going to happen.

I have read the article, but shell companies also leave a trail of money. We'll see what comes up soon among those 130,000

Quote:

The leaked records, mainly from the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore, disclose proprietary information about more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts and nearly 130,000 individuals and agents, including the wealthiest people in more than 170 countries. Not all of those named necessarily have secret bank accounts, and in some cases only conducted business through companies they control that are registered offshore.